At the Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève (HUG), Geneva's largest hospital, 52% of all patients are foreign nationals and more than 10% speak no French at all. In the context of the ongoing European refugee crisis, the medical professionals at HUG, particularly in the emergency and immigrant health service departments, often find they have no language in common with a patient. Particularly important languages are Tigrinya, Arabic and Farsi; as of September 2015, Eritreans, Syrians and Afghans make up about 60% of all new asylum seekers. Language barriers of this kind pose serious problems regarding the quality, security and equitability of health care, a phenomenon which has been the subject of detailed investigation by several teams over the last twenty years (Flores et al. "Errors in medical interpretation and their potential clinical consequences in pediatric encounters." Pediatrics 2003; Wasserman et al. "Identifying and Preventing Medical Errors in Patients With Limited English Proficiency: Key Findings and Tools for the Field". Journal for Healthcare Quality 2014).

The BabelDr speech translation application is designed to address these problems. The system has been specifically designed to assist in triaging of non-French-speaking patients visiting HUG's A&E department, and allows a medical professional to perform a preliminary medical examination dialogue, using a decision-tree method, to determine the nature of the patient's problem and the appropriate action to take. In the current version of the system, the patient is expected to respond non-verbally, e.g. by nodding, shaking their head, or pointing. BabelDr differs from general speech translation systems like Google Translate in several important respects. Speech recognition is performed using linguistic methods and is specialized for medical translation dialogues, which allows excellent recognition quality for phrases covered by the system without requiring speaker adaptation. The range of language covered by the system has been defined by doctors at HUG. All questions are mapped into a set of standard types that are translated in advance by expert translators at the University of Geneva, guaranteeing reliable output.

The aim of the project, initiated by Handi-Capable, is to collect research-based evidence on the positive socio-economic impact of inclusive education on the lives of children with CP. A brief overview of the project can be found in the association’s website. An External Advisory Committee composed of members from different backgrounds (Political Science, Pedagogy, Accessibility, International Development) will monitor the progress of the project, as well as periodically provide advice and support.

The TIM department is currently involved in the first phase of the project (March 2019-February 2020), co-founded by both the FTI and Handi-capable. After conducting a comprehensive review of the literature on the subject, the team plans to investigate current education practices in schools welcoming children with CP in Switzerland, with a focus on easy-to-read content and the use of technology in the classroom.

Effective health translation and communication strategies among multicultural populations lie at the heart of efforts to combat physical and mental diseases in multicultural societies like Australia and Switzerland. There is a persistent lack of standardised criteria and benchmarks for the development and evaluation of healthcare and medical translation resources and computerised translation systems. The lack of international standards and guidelines have impeded the effective adoption and implementation of health translation resources and technologies in healthcare research and clinical settings. Our project represents a first attempt to tackle this persistent, costly issue, which has become increasingly urgent in multicultural Australia and the refugee crisis in European countries like Switzerland. A key component of this project is to explore opportunities of the joint development of healthcare translation resources and communication technologies for Australian aboriginal communities.

The #smARTradio™ project was launched by the Radio Magica Foundation (Udine, Italy) in 2016. The Foundation is a research spin-off of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice focusing on inclusive digital technologies targeted to children and young adults. The #smARTradio™ project embodies the mission of the Foundation. Through audio and video stories penned by renowned Italian authors, #smARTradio™ pursues a design-for-all storytelling strategy, aimed at enhancing the appreciation of Italy’s cultural heritage and making it universally accessible.

Inspired by the BBC-British Museum format “A History of the World in 100 Objects”, the project sets out to create short fictional texts dedicated to select objects of Italy’s cultural heritage. The narrative process involves heritage experts (e.g. art historians, archaeologists, scientists), stakeholders and the local community in a collective storytelling process side by side with the authors. The target audience includes children and young persons aged 8-13 with or without hearing, visual or cognitive impairments. Accessibility plays a key role throughout the production process. Texts are written in simplified Italian (according to the Radio Magica team’s own guidelines) and video stories are produced in both Italian and Italian Sign Language (LIS). English and German translations of a selection of short stories are also provided.

The dissemination of the project’s outputs is approached through multiple channels, i.e. the Radio Magica portal, the social media (Facebook, Instagram), web and FM radios, museums and museum educational services, online newspapers and magazines, schools, tourist offices, libraries, theatres, literary festivals and live storytelling events.

In 2018, the #smARTradio™ project was included in the Italian Agenda of the European Year of Cultural Heritage by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (MiBAC). Following this prestigious acknowledgement, the project received the Friuli Venezia Giulia Arts and Culture Fund for the fourth consecutive year.

Against the backdrop of Leonardo Da Vinci’s 500th death anniversary, the project co-leaders aim to produce a series of long and short stories (with relevant audios and videos) focusing on objects of the Friuli Venezia Giulia cultural heritage that were created by human ingenuity and have a strong connection with water, the latter being a highly distinctive natural element of the region. The project will offer the opportunity to reflect on Leonardo’s influence on the development of hydraulic systems for both agricultural and defensive purposes in Friuli Venezia Giulia, as well as on the relationship between innovation and territorial sustainability. In this phase, the ZHAW team members will act as expert consultants on simplified Italian.